5 ms·

I couldn't agree more.

Retric 14y ago
I couldn't agree less. PS: I think the greatest hubris of youth is that there time is worth much, and they have any idea what they will be doing in 20 years.
- barry-cotter 14y ago
  Their time may not be worth much but their suffering is just as real as yours. Being forced to endure the company of people you did not choose in an artificial society with no inherent meaning or goals probably isn't healthy for many, but it's a hell for some and purgatory for others. I don't really have much to say about primary school but most of secondary school was a waiting room for real life. It would have been worse if I'd known what I was missing, I'm sure.
NateDad 14y ago
I couldn't agree less. If you can't write a proper essay, then you can't write a paper on the new algorithm you invented, you can't write legible documentation for the library you wrote, and you can't argue effectively about the merits of one technology vs. another (change out the terminology for whatever communication is required in your field). Basic math (up to and including algebra and geometry) is used all the time in every day activities. You don't have to be a math whiz and remember every last formula... but remembering that it's possible to figure out the third side of a triangle when you have the other sides and the angle between them, or being able to figure out what the original price of an item was if it's $60 now and is marked down 20% from its original price. Knowing history and social studies can help you understand the way the world works on a macro level, which is useful for figuring out if that new startup idea is going to be successful or just sit on the shelf with the rest of the bad ideas. Real life does revolve around math, history, English, and science. Perhaps the author is smart enough that he picked this stuff up without doing any of the work, so he failed the classes but learned what he needed to anyway. But that doesn't mean you don't need to learn it. Should we try to help people who don't do well in traditional school environments? Definitely. But that doesn't mean we throw out traditional schooling. There's a basic level of knowledge that everyone should have to be a productive member of society. And you have to test kids, otherwise you can't know if they're actually learning anything. But that doesn't mean we should be shaming kids who don't test well. We should be helping them learn, and changing how we test so that we are testing the knowledge rather than raw fact regurgitation. Now, if you're talking college, I can agree a lot more. Taking literature in college when you're in a CS program is more than dumb, it's a huge waste of time and money. College should be about teaching you skills for a career. For STEM careers, that doesn't mean reading Shakespeare.... but it might mean statistics and probability. The time wasted on a shakespeare class could be better spent taking a class on compilers or assembly.
- philliphaydon 14y ago
  I'm not suggesting we don't teach kids Math/English, I still think that is important, but the approach we take by shoving kids the same age in the same class doesn't work. Some kids learn faster than others, we shouldn't hold some kids back simply because they are years younger than other kids. If a 7yo is racing through maths and enjoys it, put him with kids of his skill level, when you put a 7yo who is already years ahead in math, with kids his own age learning what he already knows, he messes around out of boredom. Just because a few kids work well in a traditional environment doesn't mean we should hold those kids back, but we do. And likewise slower learning kids who could be exceptional at subjects are rushed through school and declared 'slow' or we blame the parents or homework etc for their lack of apparent intelligence.
  - NateDad 14y ago
    You're not wrong... but doing that right, over an entire population is really hard. I think there is some attempt to do this in many schools. Kids skip grades, kids stay back. There's honors programs and remedial programs. Honestly, I think the main reason we aren't doing better educating our kids is because no one wants to pay for it. Education is expensive. Rigorous testing of methodologies and re-educating teachers is expensive. We pay our teachers a pittance... I don't know how anyone expects education to be great when we aren't trying to attract brilliant people with high salaries.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "Should we try to help people who don't do well in traditional school environments? Definitely. But that doesn't mean we throw out traditional schooling" Traditional schooling is the cause of the problems people have in school. Keeping it, but making special exceptions for people who are bright but failing, is like having a tow truck drag your car to work in the morning because you did not want to take it to a mechanic. In an American school, the goal is to have all the students think the same way. We have laws that reinforce that goal at all levels of government. All students learn basic algebra and basic trigonometry. Very few learn Euclidean geometry, and almost none learn non-Euclidean geometry. A math teacher is not in any way free to decide their curriculum; the curriculum is given to the teacher, who forces it upon the students. A standardized test is given to all students at the end of the year, and it always has the same format, same subjects, and similar questions. That is not a system meant to educate people or to promote their ability to think; it is a system meant to train people to be like everyone else. It is not just that we settled on that because we lacked alternatives. We chose this approach because the people in power did not consider teaching the population how to think to be a priority. If they had considered it to be a priority, standardized testing would have been rejected early on, if it had even been thought of in the first place. "you have to test kids, otherwise you can't know if they're actually learning anything" Giving everyone the exact same test, or variants of the same test with all questions being asked in the same way, does nothing to test their academic progress. Anyone can be trained to take a test when the format, subject matter, questions, etc. are all known in advance. If you want to test people in a meaningful way, you need to give them problems they never encountered before, in formats they never encountered before. Otherwise you are just as likely to identify well-educated students as well-trained students, and you will lack any way to measure the difference. "Taking literature in college when you're in a CS program is more than dumb" Only if you think the purpose of college is vocational training. The idea that people go to college to receive job training and job credentials has been extremely destructive to higher education. It is not just that humanities departments are being slashed; in the CS department at my alma mater, computability and algorithms were the only theoretical courses. Compilers had been offered a few years before I arrived, complexity theory was not taught at all, and programming languages was just about different language features without any discussion of type theory. When I asked the department chair why the curriculum was so easy, the answer was that only a handful of CS students actually enjoyed learning CS, and that the department could not afford to have the other students leave as a result of rigorous standards. Those "other students" were only there for job credentials. If you want vocation training, get a two year associates degree. That will save you time and money, and you will not be part of the wave of destruction that is ruining higher education.

I couldn't agree less. PS: I think the greatest hubris of youth is that there time is worth much, and they have any idea what they will be doing in 20 years.

barry-cotter 14y ago
Their time may not be worth much but their suffering is just as real as yours. Being forced to endure the company of people you did not choose in an artificial society with no inherent meaning or goals probably isn't healthy for many, but it's a hell for some and purgatory for others. I don't really have much to say about primary school but most of secondary school was a waiting room for real life. It would have been worse if I'd known what I was missing, I'm sure.

NateDad 14y ago

I couldn't agree less. If you can't write a proper essay, then you can't write a paper on the new algorithm you invented, you can't write legible documentation for the library you wrote, and you can't argue effectively about the merits of one technology vs. another (change out the terminology for whatever communication is required in your field). Basic math (up to and including algebra and geometry) is used all the time in every day activities. You don't have to be a math whiz and remember every last formula... but remembering that it's possible to figure out the third side of a triangle when you have the other sides and the angle between them, or being able to figure out what the original price of an item was if it's $60 now and is marked down 20% from its original price. Knowing history and social studies can help you understand the way the world works on a macro level, which is useful for figuring out if that new startup idea is going to be successful or just sit on the shelf with the rest of the bad ideas. Real life does revolve around math, history, English, and science. Perhaps the author is smart enough that he picked this stuff up without doing any of the work, so he failed the classes but learned what he needed to anyway. But that doesn't mean you don't need to learn it. Should we try to help people who don't do well in traditional school environments? Definitely. But that doesn't mean we throw out traditional schooling. There's a basic level of knowledge that everyone should have to be a productive member of society. And you have to test kids, otherwise you can't know if they're actually learning anything. But that doesn't mean we should be shaming kids who don't test well. We should be helping them learn, and changing how we test so that we are testing the knowledge rather than raw fact regurgitation. Now, if you're talking college, I can agree a lot more. Taking literature in college when you're in a CS program is more than dumb, it's a huge waste of time and money. College should be about teaching you skills for a career. For STEM careers, that doesn't mean reading Shakespeare.... but it might mean statistics and probability. The time wasted on a shakespeare class could be better spent taking a class on compilers or assembly.

philliphaydon 14y ago
I'm not suggesting we don't teach kids Math/English, I still think that is important, but the approach we take by shoving kids the same age in the same class doesn't work. Some kids learn faster than others, we shouldn't hold some kids back simply because they are years younger than other kids. If a 7yo is racing through maths and enjoys it, put him with kids of his skill level, when you put a 7yo who is already years ahead in math, with kids his own age learning what he already knows, he messes around out of boredom. Just because a few kids work well in a traditional environment doesn't mean we should hold those kids back, but we do. And likewise slower learning kids who could be exceptional at subjects are rushed through school and declared 'slow' or we blame the parents or homework etc for their lack of apparent intelligence.
- NateDad 14y ago
  You're not wrong... but doing that right, over an entire population is really hard. I think there is some attempt to do this in many schools. Kids skip grades, kids stay back. There's honors programs and remedial programs. Honestly, I think the main reason we aren't doing better educating our kids is because no one wants to pay for it. Education is expensive. Rigorous testing of methodologies and re-educating teachers is expensive. We pay our teachers a pittance... I don't know how anyone expects education to be great when we aren't trying to attract brilliant people with high salaries.
betterunix 14y ago
"Should we try to help people who don't do well in traditional school environments? Definitely. But that doesn't mean we throw out traditional schooling" Traditional schooling is the cause of the problems people have in school. Keeping it, but making special exceptions for people who are bright but failing, is like having a tow truck drag your car to work in the morning because you did not want to take it to a mechanic. In an American school, the goal is to have all the students think the same way. We have laws that reinforce that goal at all levels of government. All students learn basic algebra and basic trigonometry. Very few learn Euclidean geometry, and almost none learn non-Euclidean geometry. A math teacher is not in any way free to decide their curriculum; the curriculum is given to the teacher, who forces it upon the students. A standardized test is given to all students at the end of the year, and it always has the same format, same subjects, and similar questions. That is not a system meant to educate people or to promote their ability to think; it is a system meant to train people to be like everyone else. It is not just that we settled on that because we lacked alternatives. We chose this approach because the people in power did not consider teaching the population how to think to be a priority. If they had considered it to be a priority, standardized testing would have been rejected early on, if it had even been thought of in the first place. "you have to test kids, otherwise you can't know if they're actually learning anything" Giving everyone the exact same test, or variants of the same test with all questions being asked in the same way, does nothing to test their academic progress. Anyone can be trained to take a test when the format, subject matter, questions, etc. are all known in advance. If you want to test people in a meaningful way, you need to give them problems they never encountered before, in formats they never encountered before. Otherwise you are just as likely to identify well-educated students as well-trained students, and you will lack any way to measure the difference. "Taking literature in college when you're in a CS program is more than dumb" Only if you think the purpose of college is vocational training. The idea that people go to college to receive job training and job credentials has been extremely destructive to higher education. It is not just that humanities departments are being slashed; in the CS department at my alma mater, computability and algorithms were the only theoretical courses. Compilers had been offered a few years before I arrived, complexity theory was not taught at all, and programming languages was just about different language features without any discussion of type theory. When I asked the department chair why the curriculum was so easy, the answer was that only a handful of CS students actually enjoyed learning CS, and that the department could not afford to have the other students leave as a result of rigorous standards. Those "other students" were only there for job credentials. If you want vocation training, get a two year associates degree. That will save you time and money, and you will not be part of the wave of destruction that is ruining higher education.